“On the sawdust?”
“Certainly, over those hills and between two of those trees in order to get to the North Pole. Curious, isn't it? If you look awfully close, real hard, you know, you can almost count their branches as they stand up against the sky. Like little feathers—huff-f-f-f—one could almost blow them away!”
The Honorable Bovyne laughed again. Clarges was a mystery to him, as to many others. Half-witted he sometimes called him, though on other occasions he stood in awe of his bright, candid, fearless nature, and his truthful and reckless tongue.
“I say,” went on Clarges excitedly, shading his eyes with his hand. “There are two trees out there in a straight line from this very cannon that—that I should know again, Bovey! Do look where I point now like a good fellow. Don't you see there, following the chimney of that big red place, factory or other, right in a line with that at the very top of the hill at its highest point, two trees that stand a little apart from the others and have such funny branches—Oh! you must be able to see them by those queer branches! One crooks out on one side just as the other does on the other tree. That isn't very lucid, but you see what I mean can't you? They make a sort of—of—lyre shape.”
The Hon. Bovyne shaded his eyes with his hand and looked out over the river and distant hills. “I see a line of trees, feathery trees, you aptly call them my dear Arthur, but I can't make out your particular two. How is it possible, at such a distance, to see anything like a lyre of all things? Come along, I've found the address I wanted. It reads most peculiarly. It seems there are still a great number of French people around here, in fact, all over this Province which they sometimes call Lower Canada. Do you remember much of your French?” I spoke a lot in Algiers of course but I fancy it isn't much like this jargon. Our destination is or appears to be, c/o Veuve Peter Ross, Les Chats, pronounced Lachatte, so Simpson told me.
“Who told you about the place?” enquired young Clarges getting off the cannon? “Simpson? What sort of a fellow is he?”
“Who? Simpson?” said his cousin in turn. “Um—not bad. Been out here too long, though. Awfully quiet, goes in for steady work and takes hardly any exercise. I wonder why it is the fellows here don't walk more! New country and all that; I should have thought they would all go in for country walks and shooting and sports of all kinds. They don't, you know, from some reason or other. It can't be the fault of the country.”
“You forget the roads, Bovey, and the fences, and the interminable distances and the immense rivers, and the long winter. I say, it looks like snow to-night, doesn't it?”
“What do you know about snow!” rejoined the Hon. Bovyne. “Let us get on, there's a good fellow—confound you! don't stare at those imaginary trees any longer, but come along.”
Certainly young Clarges was possessed with the queerest fancy about those trees. “I say, Bovey, they were funny, though, to strike me like that, out of all the others! I am sure I should know them again. Perhaps some day we'll take a fly and go out there—I wonder if there's an inn? Does what's her name, your old Scotch lady, keep an inn, or is it a farm we're going to?”