“Agreed,” said Archie; “let us work.”
At Victoria these two brave young men changed the few nuggets they had found for coin. Then they pushed their way many miles inland in Columbia, and, having hired servants and bought a little land with plenty more to purchase lying right behind it, they set to work with a will. They built their house, a solid log-mansion. They planned and laid out their gardens. They hewed timber, and sawed it, and sent it down stream. They tore the roots from the ground and cleared it for grain, and, in a word, settled down in every way as farmers, determined to make the best of every chance.
And here, in their far-away western home, let us leave them for a while, and journey over the broad Atlantic with Harvey McGregor. There are those in Scotland whose lives and actions may not be quite devoid of interest to many who have read this history from the commencement.
Chapter Twenty Two.
Glen Alva under New Government.
“The tables were drawn, it was idlesse all,
Knight and page and household squire
Loitered through the lofty hall,
Or crowded round the ample fire.
The stag-hounds, weary of the chase,
Lay stretched upon the rushy floor,
And urged in dreams the forest race,
From Teviot Stone to Eskdale moor.”
Walter Scott.
Scene: The tartan parlour of an old Highland mansion in the west of Scotland. Wine and walnuts on the table. About a dozen gentlemen seated round in attitudes of ease and enjoyment. A great fire of coal and oak logs in the low and spacious grate. From their accent these gentlemen are mostly English and American.