'My father and mother were from Wiltshire, and so be I,' she answered, setting back her wheel, and looking gratified at the implied commendation. 'But that be so long ago as I scarce remember.'
'And she made amends by marrying me,' said the settler, entering from the outer door, and latching it behind him. 'Mary, get the pan and fix some supper quick. Them duck I shot won't be bad. You see, I've been expectin' you along rather;' and he flung down an armful of wood, which he began to arrange with architectural reference to the back-log and fore-stick.
'Expecting us?' exclaimed Robert Wynn.
'You're for lot fifteen in ninth concession, township of Gazelle? Wall, so I guessed; for I heard from Zack Bunting who lives at the "Corner," that it was sold by Landenstein; and I calc'lated you'd be along presently:' and he finished his fire-building by a touch with his foot, which appeared to demolish much of his labour, but in reality conduced to his object of intensifying the heat and blaze.
'Benny,' to the boy, who had sat on the ground staring at the new-comers, 'go tell your mother to be spry.' The little fellow went accordingly, by the side door through which she had disappeared a few minutes previously; and the Irish servant, planting himself on the vacated spot with his toes to the fire comfortably, commenced to erect of the child's chips a two-storied mansion.
'You've got a good slice of bush there, back from the pond; though the cedars will be troublesome, I guess.'
'Oh, we bargained for the cedars,' said Sam Holt. 'There's enough to clear without laying an axe to them for many a day.'
'It's all the doing of that spring creek, running through the middle of the lot, as fine a water-privilege as ever I see; but the cedars are where it gets to the pond. If the bed was deepened down below, it's my opinion the swamp would be drained.'
'You seem to know the ground well,' said Robert, with interest.
'I guess I ought to, that have shot over it before ever a blazed line ran through them woods. We was farthest west once, but that's over by a long spell; the neighbourhood's pretty thick now, and the "Corner" will be a town shortly.'