It was a wonderful babe! and obviously a wise one, for it knew its own father directly, stretched out its little arms, and shouted for instant recognition. Nor had it to shout long, for Hendrick, being fond of it and regardless of appearances, seized it in his arms and smothered it in his beard, out of which retreat crows and squalls of satisfaction thereafter issued.
“Excuse me, friends,” said Hendrick at last, delivering the child to its mother. “I have been absent on a visit to my wife’s relations, and have not seen little Ian for a long time. Sit down, and we will see what cheer the pot contains. I don’t ask you to enter the hut, because while the weather is mild it is pleasanter outside. When winter comes we make more use of the house. My wife, you see, does not like it, having been accustomed to tents all her life.”
“But me—I—likes it when the snow fall,” said Trueheart, looking up with a bright smile from the pot, into which she had previously been making investigations.
“True—true. I think you like whatever I like; at least you try to!” returned the hunter, as he sat down and began to tie the feathers on the head of an arrow. “You even try to speak good grammar for my sake!”
Trueheart laughed and continued her culinary duties.
“You told us when we first met,” said Captain Trench, who had made himself comfortable on a deerskin beside the baby, “that you had taken special means not to forget your native tongue. Do I guess rightly in supposing that the teaching of it to your wife and children was the means?”
“You are right, captain. Of course, the language of the Micmac Indians is more familiar and agreeable to Trueheart, but she is obstinate, though a good creature on the whole, and insists on speaking English, as you hear.”
Another little laugh in the vicinity of the earthen pot showed that his wife appreciated the remark.
Meanwhile Goodred busied herself in preparing venison steaks over the same fire, and Oscar undertook to roast marrow bones for the whole party, as well as to instruct Oliver Trench in that delicate operation.
While they were thus engaged the shades of evening gradually descended on the scene, but that did not interfere with their enjoyment, for by heaping fresh resinous logs on the fire they produced a ruddy light, which seemed scarcely inferior to that of day; a light which glowed on the pretty and pleasant features of the wife and daughter as they moved about placing plates of birch-bark before the guests, and ladling soup and viands into trenchers of the same. Savoury smells floated on the air, and gradually expelled the scent of shrub and flower from the banqueting-hall.