“Look here, granfer, couldn’t we go now?” she asked eagerly. “We couldn’t be poorer than we are here, and if we lived where there were more people, I could get work to do at helping, that would bring in money.”
“We’ll see about it, girl, in a few weeks, maybe, but it would be an undertaking, I can tell you, to go such a long way.”
“How far is it to the frontier, granfer?” asked Nell, who as ever was athirst for information.
“Oh, a good few miles. Why, you can walk for thirty miles on this trail, without coming to anything bigger than a woodcutter’s hut, and when you’ve done the thirty miles you are still a goodish distance from the border. But if anything ever happens to me, you’d best make tracks over the border as fast as you can go.”
“Why?” she asked, throwing back her head to get a better look at him, then blinking like an owl, because the sun came into her eyes.
“For ever so many reasons. Canada is a land of promise for young people. Then, English law, by which, of course, I mean Canadian law, is kinder to lone women and girls than American. But I must be stirring, or that bit o’ work down beyond won’t get done by sundown.” And the old man prepared to shuffle off at a slow, comfortable crawl, which was his usual rate of travel.
But there was a request Nell had to prefer before he went, and she rose up hurriedly to intercept his going.
“Granfer, I’m seventeen to-day; mayn’t I have the box of mother’s things that father left for you to take care of? He said I was to have them when I was seventeen.”
“So he did, only I’d forgotten all about it, and, now I come to think of it, I lost the key a good few years back, so you’ll just have to wait till I come home again, then I’ll get out my tools and prise the lid open.”
Doss Umpey quickened his pace then, as if anxious not to be recalled, and was soon out of sight, hidden from view by the trees.