He had good cause for gratulation at the wedding that day. His own indomitable industry and energy had raised him from being a struggling weaver in Lanarkshire to be a prosperous landowner in Canada West. He looked upon a flourishing family of sons and daughters round the festive board in Benson's barn, every one of them a help to wealth instead of a diminution to it; strong, intelligent lads, healthy and handy lasses. With scarce a care or a doubt, he could calculate on their comfortable future.
'I tell you what, neighbour,' cried stout John Benson, from the head of the table, 'throw by cold water for once, and pledge me in good whisky to the lucky day that brought us both to Canada.'
'Na, na,' quoth Davidson, shaking his grizzled head, 'I'll drink the toast wi' all my heart, but it must be in gude water. These twenty year back I hae been a temperance man, and hae brought up thae lads to the same fashion; for, coming to Canada, I kenned what ruined mony a puir fallow might weel be the ruin o' me, an' I took a solemn vow that a drap o' drink suld never moisten my lips mair. Sandy Davidson wouldna be gettin' John Benson's daughter in marriage the day, if it werena for the cauld water.'
Captain Armytage, who never missed a merrymaking of any description within a circle of miles, took on himself to reply to this teetotal oration.
It was all very well for Mr. Davidson to talk thus, but few constitutions could bear up against the excessive labour of bush life without proportionate stimulants. For his own part, he would sink under it, but for judicious reinforcement of cordials, ordered him by the first medical man in Europe.
'I daur say,' replied Davidson, whose keen hard eye had been fixed on the speaker; 'I daur say. Ye mak' nae faces at yer medicine, anyhow. It's weel that Zack's store is so handy to Daisy Burn, only I'm thinkin' the last will go to the first, in the long run.'
'What do you mean, sir?' demanded the captain fierily.
'Naething,' responded Davidson coolly,—'naething save what e'er the words mean.'
'But we were a-goin' to drink to Canada, our adopted country,' put in Benson, willing to stifle the incipient quarrel—'the finest country on the face of the earth, after Old England.'
His stentorian Shropshire lungs supplied a cheer of sufficient intensity, taken up by his guests.