"Well," said Saul. "Good-day. Yo-hoist! Yo, yo, ho-hoist!"
It did not seem to him necessary to state whether he was, or was not, going to take the advice offered. The straining and creaking of the cart, his shouts to the oxen, would have obliterated any further query the boy might have made. He had fairly moved off when the boy also took up his burden and trudged on the other way.
CHAPTER VIII.
When the blueberry bushes are dry, all the life in them, sucked into their roots against another summer, the tops turn a rich, brownish red; at this time, also, wild bramble thickets have many a crimson stalk that gives colour to their mass, and the twigs that rise above the white trunks of birch trees are not grey, but brown.
Round the new railway station at the cross-roads near Turrifs Settlement, the low-lying land, for miles and miles, was covered with, blueberry bushes; bramble thickets were here and there; and where the land rose a little, in irregular places, young birch woods stood. If the snow had sprinkled here, as it had upon the hills the night before, there was no sign of it now. The warm colour of the land seemed to glow against the dulness of the afternoon, not with the sparkle and brightness which colour has in sunshine, but with the glow of a sleeping ember among its ashes. Round the west there was metallic blue colouring upon the cloud vault. This colouring was not like a light upon the cloud, it was like a shadow upon it; yet it was not grey, but blue. Where the long straight road from Turrifs and the long straight road from the hills crossed each other, and were crossed by the unprotected railway track with its endless rows of tree-trunks serving as telegraph poles, the new station stood.
It was merely a small barn, newly built of pinewood, divided into two rooms—one serving as a store-room for goods, the other as waiting-room, ticket office, and living-room of the station-master. The station-master, who was, in fact, master, clerk, and porter in one, was as new to his surroundings as the little fresh-smelling pinewood house. He was a young Englishman, and at the first glance it could be seen he had not long been living in his present place. He had, indeed, not yet given up shaving himself, and his clothes, although rough, warm, and suited to his occupation, still suggested, not homespun, but an outfit bought of a tailor.
It was about four o'clock on that November afternoon when the new official of the new station looked out at the dark red land and the bright-tinted cloud. It was intensely cold. The ruts of the roads, which were not made of logs here, were frozen stiff. The young man stood a minute at his door with his hands in his pockets, sniffed the frost, and turned in with an air of distaste. A letter that had been brought him by the morning train lay on his table, addressed to "Alec Trenholme, Esq." It had seen vicissitudes, and been to several addresses in different cities, before it had been finally readdressed to this new station. Perhaps its owner had not found the path to fortune which he sought in the New World as easily accessible as he had expected. Whether he had now found it or not, he set himself to that which he had found in manly fashion.
Coming in from the cold without, and shutting himself in, as he supposed, for the evening, he wisely determined to alleviate the peculiar feeling of cold and desolation which the weather was fitted to induce by having an early tea. He set his pan upon a somewhat rusty stove and put generous slices of ham therein to fry. He made tea, and then set forth his store of bread, his plates and cup, upon the table, with some apparent effort to make the meal look attractive. The frying ham soon smelt delicious, and while it was growing brown, Alec Trenholme read his letter for the fifth time that day. It was not a letter that he liked, but, since the morning train, only two human beings had passed by the station, and the young station-master would have read and re-read a more disagreeable epistle than the one which had fallen to his lot. It was dated from a place called Chellaston, and was from his brother. It was couched in terms of affection, and contained a long, closely reasoned argument, with the tenor of which it would seem the reader did not agree, for he smiled at it scornfully!
He had not re-read his letter and dished his ham before sounds on the road assured him an ox-cart was approaching, and, with an eagerness to see who it might be which cannot be comprehended by those who have not lived in isolation, he went out to see Saul and his cattle coming at an even pace down the road from the hills. The cart ran more easily now that the road was of the better sort, and the spirits of both man and beasts were so raised by the sight of a house that they all seemed in better form for work than when in the middle of their journey.
Alec Trenholme waited till the cart drew up between his door and the railway track, and regarded the giant stature of the lumberman, his small, round head, red cheeks, and luxuriant whiskers, with that intense but unreflecting interest which the lonely bestow upon unexpected company. He looked also, with an eye to his own business, at the contents of the cart, and gave the man a civil "good evening."