The mass of food cooked for the important day required so much extra labour, as sorely to discompose the Irish damsel who acted under Linda's directions. Miss Biddy Murphy had already begun to take airs on herself, and to value her own services extravagantly. Life in the bush was not her ideal in coming to America, but rather high wages, and perchance a well-to-do husband; and, knowing that it would be difficult to replace her, she thought she might be indolent and insolent with impunity. Linda's mother never knew of all the hard household work which her frail fragile girl went through in these days of preparation, nor what good reason the roses had for deserting her cheeks. Mamma should not be vexed by hearing of Biddy's defection; and there was an invaluable and indignant coadjutor in Andy.
Everybody was at the bee. Zack Bunting and his team, Davidson and his team, and his tall sons; Captain Armytage and Mr. Reginald; Jacques Dubois and another French Canadian; a couple of squatters from the other side of the lake; altogether two dozen men were assembled, with a fair proportion of oxen.
It was a burning summer day: perhaps a hundred degrees in the sun at noon. What a contrast to the season which had witnessed the fall of the great trees now logging into heaps. Robert could hardly believe his memory, that for three months since the year began, the temperature of this very place had been below the freezing-point.
Mr. Reginald Armytage volunteered to be grog-bos, an office which suited his 'loafing' propensities, since his duties consisted in carrying about a pail of water and a bottle of whisky to the knots of workmen. His worthy father's position was almost as ornamental, for after one or two feeble efforts with a handspike, he went to talk with Mr. Wynn the elder—chiefly of a notable plan which he had for clearing a belt of wood lying between his farmhouse and the lake, and which quite shut out all view.
'You see that Scotch fellow had no taste about his place, eh? He just thought of the vulgar utilitarian facts of the farm as it were; but for the cultivation of the eye, the glorious influence of landscape, he had no thought. Daisy Burn might as well be in the bottom of a pit; all one can see is the sky and the walls of forest outside the clearing. Now my plan is—Reginald, my boy,' as the grog-bos passed within hearing distance, 'give me the cup. The day is sultry to an extreme, eh?' Having refreshed his throat, he proceeded: 'My plan is, to set on fire that strip of forest, eh? I never could abide the slow work of the axe. With proper precautions, such as engineers use along the new rail-lines, the burning might be kept within bounds, eh?'
Mr. Wynn, who knew nothing at all about the matter, courteously assented.
'Just look at my father, the glorious old gentleman, how he stands like a general overseeing a lot of pioneers,' said Robert to Arthur, as they passed one another. 'Wonder what he and that drone are conversing about so long.'
'I heard Armytage saying he would clear the belt of his forest on the lake with fire,' was the reply. 'In which case we may look out.'
'Whew!' Robert whistled a long note. But his gang of teamsters wanted him and his handspike, so he went on. Each yoke of oxen had four men attached to it, for the purpose of rolling the logs on top of each other, and picking the ground clear after them; which last means gathering all chips and sticks into the pile likewise. An acre to each team is considered a fair day's work. Robert was so busy as quite to forget the captain and his alarming method of clearing, thenceforth.
By evening something had been done towards disentangling Cedar Creek. The trees, which had lain about at every conceivable angle, in the wildest disorder, were rolled into masses ready for burning, through six acres of the clearing. The men had worthily earned their supper. In the old shanty it was laid out, on boards and tressels from end to end. The dignified Mr. Wynn of Dunore took the chair; Captain Armytage was vice, or croupier. As to attendance, the Irish damsel struck work at the most critical juncture, and refused to minister to them in the article of tea. The ever-ready Andy, just in with blackened hands from his long day's field-work, washed them hurriedly, and became waiter for the nonce, having first energetically declared that if he was Biddy Murphy, he'd be 'shamed to ate the bread he didn't airn; and that she might go home to her mother as soon as she liked, for an iligant young lady as she was. Zack Bunting overheard the strife, and the same night, on his return home, dropped a hint to the girl Libby—short for Liberia—his wife's orphan and penniless niece, who dwelt with them as a servant, and whose support they were anxious to get off their hands; and so, to her own prodigious astonishment, the recalcitrant Biddy found herself superseded, and the American help hired a day or two afterwards.