Cedar Creek: From the Shanty to the Settlement. A Tale of Canadian Life

Now the squire walked through the broad sloping street of pretty and clean detached cottages (white, with bright green shutters outside), fronting fields whence the forest had been pushed back considerably. Orchards of young trees bloomed about them; the sawmill was noisily eating its way through planks on the edge of the stream; groups of 'sugar-bush' maples stood about; over all the declining sun, hastening to immerse itself in the measureless woods westward. 'Pleasant places,' said Mr. Wynn to himself, quoting old words; 'my lot has fallen in pleasant places.'

Sitting in the summer parlour of the butternut's shade, he read his newspaper—a weekly Greenock print, the advertisement side half-filled with quack medicines, after the manner of such journals in Canada. Presently an entry in the 'Deaths' arrested his attention.

'Died, at his house in Montreal, on the 11th inst., Captain Reginald Armytage, late of H.M.'s 115th foot. Friends at a distance will please accept this intimation.'

Robert sprang to his feet. 'Let me see it, father.'

Now was the twentieth day of the month. 'I wonder she has not written to some of us—to Linda even,' said he, returning the paper. Then going over beside his mother, he whispered, 'I shall go to her, mother.'

'Poor Edith! But what could you do, my son?'

'Mother'—after a pause—'shall I not bring you another daughter to fill Linda's empty place?'

Mrs. Wynn had long before this been trusted with the story of Robert's affection. Her gentleness won every secret of her son's heart.

What could she say now but bless him through her tears?

And so he went next day. He found the mean house in the obscure street where Edith had for years toiled, and not unhappily. Duty never brings unmixed pain in its performance.

The schoolroom was full of the subdued hum of children's voices; the mistress stood at her desk, deep mourning on her figure and in her face. It was only the twelfth day since her bereavement; but she was glad of the return of regular work, though the white features and frail hands hardly seemed equal to much as yet. Presently the German girl who was her servant opened the door, and Miss Armytage went to hear her message.

'Von gentleman's in parlour;' which suggested to Edith a careful father of fresh pupils. She gave her deputy, Jay, a few charges, and went to the visitor, who had thought her an interminable time in coming. He, blooming, strong, fresh from his healthy farm life in the backwoods, saw with compassion how wan and worn she looked. Nursing at night during her father's illness, and school-keeping in the day, might be blamed for this. Would she come to Cedar Creek and be restored?

'Yes,' she answered, with perfect frankness, but not until the current six months of schooling had elapsed. At the end of June she would be free; and then, if Mrs. Wynn asked her and Jay—

The other, the old question, was on Robert's lips at the instant. And to this also she said 'Yes.'

Now for the prospects of the settlement which we have traced from its first shanty to its first street. Its magnates looked forward confidently to its development as a town—nay, perchance as a city of ten thousand inhabitants, when it purposes to assume a new name, as risen from nonage. Future maps may exhibit it as Wynnsboro', in honour of the founder. A station on the line of rail to connect the Ottawa with Lake Huron is to stand beside that concession line (now a level plank road) where Robert Wynn halted eleven years ago, axe in hand, and gazed in dismay on the impenetrable bush.

THE END