During the next week or two, from his old-time enemies at The Gore, Blakely had purchased for himself, for Angus Ferguson and for Davy Simpson a supply of the best fence posts the county could boast. “Enough,” as Bill said, “to keep Nick Perkins busy for three months a-countin’ them, the next time he found a mortgage due on a Cameron’s farm over by the way of The Front.”
In all the transactions of Cameron thus far since his return Nick Perkins was able to discover a piercing dart, truly thrown at the hypocrisy of his own career. The subjects he had chosen from among the people upon whom to lavish such expenditures of money were always certain to be those who had either been oppressed by him in the past or else considered themselves his natural enemies. Perkins knew of the housebuilding to commence in the Spring at The Nole, for already Blakely was completing the contract he held to supply the stone for the masonry of the foundation walls. Another fact which galled Perkins to madness was that the farmers who had been kept constantly employed were, in every case, those against whom he himself held a mortgage, and he saw very plainly his prospects for eventually gaining their property daily slipping more surely from his grasp.
The Spring season had now arrived, and up at The Nole a small army of workmen were engaged in removing the buildings which had once been occupied by Cameron as his home. The return of April’s hot sun and warm winds had loosened the grip which for months held the icebound river captive between the islands and shore, and suddenly one day, as the workmen had quit for midday lunch, the long-delayed alarm was sounded that the river was breaking up. Down the main boat channel, as far as the eye could see, a forward movement was on. Great squares and chunks of ice lunged and dipped, then plunged forward again like the wheeling and turning of an army of soldiers. Over on the shores of Castle Island mammoth cakes the size of the roofs of the buildings climbed upward till they broke and toppled over by their own weight, crunching and thumping and groaning, till a dull, rumbling noise like the approach of an earthquake could plainly be heard.
Opposite to The Nole, extending in a zig-zag course through the piles of debris, ran gaping cracks in the ice. All the Winter the irregular heaps of ugliness which composed the freight on what was now called “Cameron’s Charity Raft” had reminded those who passed that way of the original methods employed by one man to relieve the condition of his brother workers. The useless stone heaps served no purpose upon the farms from whence they were taken, and the discarded wagon parts and dilapidated farm implements which Cameron had purchased from his neighbors had served them only as an encumbrance and nuisance. Now they soon would be beyond annoying the sight, and their last opportunity for usefulness had brought joy and peacefulness into many a home along The Front. As the immense ice floe passed almost intact down the channel, beating its way amidst the warring, jamming ice cakes, a ringing cheer, led by old Bill Blakely and joined by the company of workmen, went up for the man who had brought fortune and good cheer into their midst.
CHAPTER XIX.
LeClare to Prospect in Arcadia.
In the early months of Spring, LeClare was busily engaged with the architects and builders at work upon the mansion at The Nole. He viewed the undertaking from day to day, which for weeks seemed but a shapeless pile of board and scantling; but, as the work progressed, from out the chaos and confusion could be seen the growing outlines of the stately columns and the extending roofs of many gables.