The landlord, her “man,” obeyed the summons, entering from the bar-room. She met him with a sharp rebuke, for not bringing water enough, not splitting wood enough, not bringing the vegetables for dinner—“An’ it drawin’ on to ’leven o’clock—and he knew the bachelors would be home to dinner at twelve.” And pushing the empty pail into his hand, she bade him make haste to the well, and be back in no time with the water, and so she hustled him out of the house. And soon the process of dinner-cooking was commenced; and in addition to the melting heat of the stove, the various mingled steams of boiling, stewing, and frying arose, and filled the summer air with thick, greasy vapour.
“Surely cooking-stoves were first invented by the demon,” Rosalie could not help thinking, while she resolved, whenever she had to cook, it should be in an open fire-place, where the stifling vapours could ascend the chimney.
When dinner was ready, the sound of the horn summoned the same company, who entered first an adjoining shed, where they all washed their faces and hands, using the same tin basin and the same crash towel, and then—coarse, ruddy, healthful, and hungry—they came in, and gathered around the table. A few minutes after they had sat down, Mark Sutherland returned from his morning’s ramble, and took his seat among them.
“How have you prospered in your enterprise to-day, Mark?” asked Rosalie, as they left the table.
“I have got through all I wished to do to my perfect satisfaction, except one thing.”
“And that?”
“I have not been able to rent a house, or a part of a house, either for love or money! And so, dear Rosalie, I shall have to leave you again this afternoon, in order to renew my search. And I am afraid you find the time hang very heavily.”
“Not at all, I assure you, Mark. I have been occupied and interested. Everything is so different here from what I have ever been accustomed to.”
“Yes, very different, indeed!” said Mark Sutherland, with a sigh.
“Now, I didn’t mean that,” said Rosalie, smiling. “I meant that everything is so new and strange that I am entertained and amused every moment.”