I have said that his appearance was prepossessing, and so it was in the ordinary course of things, though he had a broad scar on his left cheek, which, on the rare occasions when he was angry, asserted itself somewhat conspicuously, and imparted, for the nonce, a sinister expression to his countenance. This disfigurement, as I have heard, had been received by him some years before his arrival in Canada. During a visit to one of the market towns in the neighborhood of his home, he had casually dropped into a gymnasium, and engaged in a fencing bout with a friend who accompanied him. Neither of the contestants had ever handled a foil before, and they were of course unskilled in the use of such dangerous playthings. During the contest the button had slipped from his opponent's weapon, just as the latter was making a vigorous lunge. As a consequence Savareen's cheek had been laid open by a wound which left its permanent impress upon him. He himself was in the habit of jocularly alluding to this disfigurement as his "bar sinister."
For the rest, he was stubborn as a mule about trifles which did not in the least concern him, but as regarded the affairs of every-day life he was on the whole pleasant and easy-going, more especially when nothing occurred to put him out. When anything of the kind did occur, he could certainly assume the attitude of an ugly customer, and on such occasions the wound on his cheek put on a lurid hue which was not pleasant to contemplate. His ordinary discourse mainly dealt with the events of his everyday life. It was not intellectually stimulating, and for the most part related to horses, dogs, and the crop prospects of the season. In short, if you have ever lived in rural England, or if you have been in the habit of frequenting English country towns on market-days, you must have encountered scores of jolly young farmers who, to all outward seeming, with the solitary exception of the sinister scar, might pretty nearly have stood for his portrait.
Such was Reginald Bourchier Savareen, and if you have never come across anybody possessing similar characteristics—always excepting the scar—your experience of your fellow-creatures has been more limited than might be expected from a reader of your age and manifest intelligence.
His farm—i.e., the farm rented by him—belonged to old Squire Harrington, and lay in a pleasant valley on the western side of the gravel road leading northward from Millbrook to Spotswood. The Squire himself lived in the red brick mansion which peeped out from the clump of maples a little further down on the opposite side of the road. The country thereabouts was settled by a thrifty and prosperous race of pioneers, and presented a most attractive appearance. Alternate successions of hill and dale greeted the eye of the traveller as he drove along the hard-packed highway, fifteen miles in length, which formed the connecting link between the two towns above mentioned. The land was carefully tilled, and the houses, generally speaking, were of a better class than were to be found in most rural communities in Upper Canada at that period. Savareen's own dwelling was unpretentious enough, having been originally erected for one of the squire's "hired men," but it was sufficient for his needs, as he had not married until a little more than a year before the happening of the events to be presently related, and his domestic establishment was small. His entire household consisted of himself, his young wife, an infant in arms, a man servant and a rustic maid of all work. In harvest time he, of course, employed additional help, but the harvesters were for the most part residents of the neighborhood, who found accommodation in their own homes. The house was a small frame, oblong building, of the conventional Canadian farm-house order of architecture, painted of a drab color and standing a hundred yards or so from the main road. The barn and stable stood a convenient distance to the rear. About midway between house and barn was a deep well, worked with a windlass and chain. During the preceding season a young orchard had been planted out in the space intervening between the house and the road. Everything about the place was kept in spick and span order. The tenant was fairly successful in his farming operations, and appeared to be holding his own with the world around him. He paid his rent promptly, and was on excellent terms with his landlord. He was, in fact, rather popular with his neighbors generally, and was regarded as a man with a fair future before him.
CHAPTER II.
THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
About a quarter of a mile to the north of Savareen's abode was a charming little hostelry, kept by a French Canadian named Jean Baptiste Lapierre. It was one of the snuggest and cosiest of imaginable inns; by no means the sort of wayside tavern commonly to be met with in Western Canada in those times, or even in times much more recent. The landlord had kept a high-class restaurant in Quebec in the old days before the union of the Provinces, and piqued himself upon knowing what was what. He was an excellent cook, and knew how to cater to the appetites of more exacting epicures than he was likely to number among his ordinary patrons in a rural community like that in which he had piched his quarters. When occasion required, he could serve up a dinner or supper at which Brillat Savarian himself would have had no excuse for turning up his nose. It was seldom that any such exigeant demand as this was made upon his skill, but even his ordinary fare was good enough for any city sir or madam whom chance might send beneath his roof, and such persons never failed to carry away with them pleasant remembrances of the place.
The creaking sign which swayed in the breeze before the hospitable door proclaimed it to be The Royal Oak, but it was commonly known throughout the whole of that country-side as Lapierre's. The excellence of its larder was proverbial, insomuch that professional men and others used frequently to drive out from town expressly to dine or sup there. Once a week or so—usually on Saturday nights—a few of the choice spirits thereabouts used to meet in the cosy parlor and hold a decorous sort of free-and-easy, winding up with supper at eleven o'clock. On these occasions, as a matter of course, the liquor flowed with considerable freedom, and the guests had a convivial time of it; but there was nothing in the shape of wild revelry—nothing to bring reproach upon the good name of the house. Jean Baptiste had too much regard for his well-earned reputation to permit these meetings to degenerate into mere orgies. He showed due respect for the sanctity of the Sabbath, and took care to make the house clear of company before the stroke of midnight. By such means he not only kept his guests from indulging in riotous excesses, but secured their respect for himself and his establishment.
Savareen was a pretty regular attendant at these convivial gatherings, and was indeed a not infrequent visitor at other times. He always met with a warm welcome, for he could sing a good song, and paid his score with commendable regularity. His Saturday nights' potations did not interfere with his timely appearance on Sunday morning in his pew in the little church which stood on the hill a short distance above Lapierre's. His wife usually sat by his side, and accompanied him to and fro. Everything seemed to indicate that the couple lived happily together, and that they were mutually blessed in their domestic relations. With regard to Mrs. Savareen, the only thing necessary to be mentioned about her at present is that she was the daughter of a carpenter and builder resident in Millbrook.
There was a good deal of travel on the Millbrook and Spotswood road, more especially in the autumn, when the Dutch farmers from the settlements up north used to come down in formidable array, for the purpose of supplying themselves with fruit to make cider and "applesass" for the winter. The great apple-producing district of the Province begins in the townships lying a few miles to the south of Westchester, and the road between Millbrook and Spotswood was, and is, the most direct route thither from the Dutch settlements. The garb and other appointments of the stalwart Canadian Teuton of those days were such as to make him easily distinguishable from his Celtic or Saxon neighbor. He usually wore a long, heavy, coat of coarse cloth, reaching down to his heels. His head was surmounted by a felt hat with a brim wide enough to have served, at a pinch, for the tent of a side-show. His wagon was a great lumbering affair, constructed, like himself, after an ante-diluvian pattern, and pretty nearly capacious enough for a first-rate man-of-war. In late September and early October it was no unprecedented thing to see as many as thirty or forty of these ponderous vehicles moving southward, one at the tail of the other, in a continuous string. They came down empty, and returned a day or two afterwards laden with the products of the southern orchards. On the return journey the wagons were full to overflowing. Not so the drivers, who were an exceedingly temperate and abstemious people, too parsimonious to leave much of their specie at the Royal Oak. It was doubtless for this reason that mine host Lapierre regarded, and was accustomed to speak of them with a good deal of easy contempt, not to say aversion. They brought little or no grist to his mill, and he was fond of proclaiming that he did not keep a hotel for the accommodation of such canaille. The emphasis placed by him on this last word was something quite refreshing to hear.