“You touch there on a very singular thing, Mr. Charlie. Not that we crowded out the Irish. There were only a few families, and most of them are here yet. They happened to come first, and named the settlements—that’s all. But for the Scotch—you find more good Scots’ names to the hundred, once you strike the hills, than you will find to the thousand on the plain country. Love of the hills is in the blood of them; they followed the Rocky Mountains down from Canada.”
“But, Uncle Dan,” said Hobby, “how did so many of them happen to be in Canada?”
“Scotland was a poor country and a cold country, England was rich and warm, Canada was cold and hard. The English had no call to Canada, the Hudson Bay Company captained their outflung posts with Scotchmen; the easier that the Hanoverian kings, as a matter of policy, harried the Jacobite clans by fair means and foul. You were speaking of across the river. That is another curious matter. The California Company, now—ruling a dozen dukedoms—California lends the name of it and supplied the money; but the heads that first dreamed it were four long Scottish heads. And their brand is the John Cross. Any stranger cowman would read that brand as J Half Circle Cross. But we call it John Cross. And why, sirs?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Hobby. “It was always the John Cross and it never entered my head to ask why.”
“Look you there, now!” Uncle Dan held out an open palm and traced on it with a stubby and triumphant finger. “Their fathers had served John Company, the Hudson Bay Company! And there you are linked back with two hundred years! ‘John Company has a long arm,’ they said; ‘John Company lost a good man there!’ How the name began is beyond my sure knowing; but it is in my mind that it goes back farther still, to the East India Company, to Clive and to Madras. Lyn, you are the bookman, I’ll get you to look it up some of these—Lyn! Lyn! Charlie See! The young devils! Now wouldn’t that jar you?”
“A fool and his honey are soon started,” observed Adam.
“We’re out here, Uncle Dan; all nice and comfy. There’s a moon. And itty-bitsy stars,” answered a soothing voice—Charlie See’s—from the porch. “Oodles of stars. How I wonder what they are. G’wan, Uncle Dan—tell us about the East India Company now.”
Hobby Lull rose tragically and bestowed a withering glance upon Uncle Dan. “You old fat fallacy with an undistributed middle—see what you’ve done now! You and your John Company! Go to bed! Forbes, you brought this man See. You go home!”
“Overlook it this one time,” urged Forbes. “Don’t send us away—the girls are going to sing. Forgive us all both, and I’ll get rid of See to-morrow.”