Then the latest days in November brought the snow. Steadily and silently the grey heavens covered the shivering earth with its smooth woolly coating of purest flakes. While wet Atlantic breezes moaned sorrowfully round Dunore, as if wailing over shattered fortunes, the little log-shanty in the Canadian bush was deep in snow. Not so large as the butler's pantry in that old house at home, nor so well furnished as the meanest servant's apartment had been during the prosperous times, with hardly one of the accessories considered indispensable to comfort in the most ordinary British sitting-room, yet the rough shanty had a pleasantness of its own, a brightness of indoor weather, such as is often wanting where the fittings of domestic life are superb. Hope was in the Pandora's box to qualify all evils.
By the firelight the settlers were this evening carrying on various occupations. Mr. Holt's seemed the most curious, and was the centre of attraction, though Robert was cutting shingles, and Arthur manufacturing a walnut-wood stool in primitive tripod style.
'I tell you what,' said he, leaning on the end of his plane, whence a shaving had just slowly curled away, 'I never shall be able to assist at or countenance a logging-bee, for I consider it the grossest waste of valuable merchandise. The idea of voluntarily turning into smoke and ashes the most exquisitely grained bird's-eye maple, black walnut, heart-of-oak, cherry, and birch—it's a shame for you, Holt, not to raise your voice against such wilful waste, which will be sure to make woful want some day. Why, the cabinetmakers at home would give you almost any money for a cargo of such walnut as this under my hand.'
'I regret it as much as you do; but till the country has more railroads it is unavoidable, and only vexatious to think of. We certainly do burn away hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of the most expensive wood, while people in England pay enormous prices for furniture which our refuse timber could supply.'
'And don't you export any ornamental wood?' asked Robert. 'I saw plenty of deals swimming down the St. Lawrence.'
'Yes, pine timber meets with the readiest market, and is easiest procurable. But even in that there is the most unjustifiable wastefulness practised. I was among the lumberers once, and saw the way they square the white pine. You know that every tree is of course tapering in the trunk, narrower at the top than at the base; now, to square the log, the best timber of the lower part must be hewn away, to make it of equal dimensions with the upper part. I am not above the mark when I say that millions of excellent boards are left to rot in the forest by this piece of mismanagement, and the white-pine woods are disappearing rapidly.'
But Arthur's sympathies could not be roused for such ordinary stuff as deal, to the degree of resentment he felt for the wholesale destruction of cabinetmakers' woods.
'If I may make so bould, sir,' said Andy, edging forward, 'might I ax what yer honour is makin'? Only there aren't any giants in the counthry, I'd think it was a pair of shoes, may be.'
'You've guessed rightly,' replied Mr. Holt, holding up his two colossal frames, so that they rested on edge. 'Yes, Andy, a pair of shoes near six feet long! What do you think of that new Canadian wonder?'
'I dunno where you'll get feet to fit 'em,' said Andy dubiously. 'They're mostly as big as boats, an' much the same shape. May be they're for crossin' the wather in?'