The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Countess from Canada, by Bessie Marchant

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Title: A Countess from Canada A Story of Life in the Backwoods

Author: Bessie Marchant

Release Date: February 16, 2004 [EBook #11110] [Last Updated: September 10, 2013]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COUNTESS FROM CANADA ***

Produced by Prepared by Al Haines

A COUNTESS FROM CANADA

A Story of Life in the Backwoods

BY

BESSIE MARCHANT

Author of "Three Girls in Mexico" "Daughters of the Dominion"
"Sisters of Silver Creek" "A Courageous Girl" &c.

ILLUSTRATED BY CYRUS CUNEO

Contents

CHAP.

I. BEYOND THE SECOND PORTAGE II. A CURIOUS ACCIDENT III. OUTWITTING THE ENEMY IV. A NIGHT OF ROUGH WORK V. A SACRED CONFIDENCE VI. BUSINESS BOTHERS VII. ANOTHER CLUE VIII. THE FIRST RAIN IX. THE FLOOD X. THE STRANGER PROVES A FRIEND IN NEED XI. A WOMAN OF BUSINESS XII. THE FIRST OF THE FISHING XIII. MARY XIV. WOULD THEY BE FRIENDS? XV. MR. SELINCOURT IS INDISCREET XVI. "WE MUST BE FRIENDS!" XVII. 'DUKE RADFORD'S NEW FRIEND XVIII. STANDING ASIDE XIX. AN AWKWARD FIX XX. KATHERINE MAKES A DISCOVERY XXI. MATTER FOR HEARTACHE XXII. A BUSINESS XXIII. THE MAJORITY DECIDES XXIV. MR. SELINCOURT IS CONFIDENTIAL XXV. THE RIFT IN THE CLOUDS XXVI. FIGHTING THE STORM XXVII. A BEARER OF EVIL TIDINGS XXVIII. THE GLADNESS XXIX. WINTER AGAIN XXX. PREPARATIONS XXXI. THE WEDDING

Illustrations

The Rescue of Jarvis Ferrars
'Duke Radford Meets with an Accident
Katherine and Miles Spearing for Fish
"With all her strength Katherine hauled at the rope"
Bartering with the Indians
Drifting Down the River

CHAPTER I

Beyond the Second Portage

"Oh dear, how I should love to go out!"

Katherine Radford stretched her arms wearily above her head as she spoke. There had been five days of persistent snowfall; but this morning the clouds had broken, showing strips and patches of blue sky, and there was bright sunshine flooding the world again, with hard and sparkling frost.

"Why don't you go?" demanded Phil, who was the youngest. "Miles and me don't mind having a holiday at all."

"Speak for yourself if you like," growled Miles, who was thirteen; "but I want to get this schooling business over and done with, so that I can start doing something useful."

"And speak grammatically, please, or else keep silent. You should have said, 'Miles and I'," remarked Katherine with quite crushing dignity, as she turned from the window to take her place at the table once more. Phil thrust his tongue in his cheek, after the manner beloved of small boys, and subsided into silence and an abstracted study of his spelling book.

The schoolroom was a small chamber, partitioned off from the store by a wall of boards so thin that all conversation about buying and selling, with the gossip of the countryside thrown in, was plainly audible to the pupils, whose studies suffered in consequence. The stovepipe from the store went through this room, keeping it comfortably warm, and in winter 'Duke Radford and the boys slept there, because it was so terribly cold in the loft.

Katherine had come home from college in July, determined to teach school all winter, and to make a success of it, too, in a most unpromising part of the world. But even the most enthusiastic teacher must fail to get on if there are no scholars to teach, and at present she had only Miles and Phil, her two brothers, as pupils. This was most trying to Katherine's patience, for, of course, if there had only been pupils enough, she could have had a properly constituted school, and a salary also. She might even have had a regular schoolhouse to teach in, instead of being compelled to use a makeshift such as this. But everything must have a beginning, and so she had worked on bravely through the autumn, hoping against hope for more pupils. In the intervals between teaching the boys she kept the books for her father, and even attended to the wants of an occasional customer when 'Duke Radford was busy or absent.

The store at Roaring Water Portage was awkwardly placed for business. It stood on a high bank overlooking the rapids, and when it was built, five years before, had been the centre of a mining village. But the mining village had been abandoned for three years now, because the vein of copper had ended in a thick seam of coal, which, under present circumstances, was not worth working. Now the nearest approach to a village was at Seal Cove, at the mouth of the river, nearly three miles away, where there were about half a dozen wooden huts, and the liquor saloon kept by Oily Dave when he was at home, and shut up when he was absent on fishing expeditions.

Although houses were so scarce, there was no lack of trade for the lonely store in the woods. All through the summer there was a procession of birchbark canoes, filled with red men and white, coming down the river to the bay, laden with skins of wolf, fox, beaver, wolverine, squirrel, and skunk, the harvest of the winter's trapping. Then in winter the cove and the river were often crowded with boats, driven to anchorage there by the ice, and to escape the fearful storms sweeping over the bay. The river was more favoured as an anchorage than the cove, because it was more sheltered, and also because there was open water at the foot of the rapids even in the severest winter, and had been so long as anyone could remember.

As the morning wore on, Katherine's mood became even more restless, and she simply yearned for the fresh air and the sunshine. She was usually free to go out-of-doors in the afternoons, because the boys only worked until noon, and then again in the evening, when it was night school, and Katherine did her best with such of the fisher folk as preferred learning to loafing and gambling in Oily Dave's saloon.

Even Miles seemed stupid this morning, for he was usually such a good worker; while Phil was quite hopeless. Both boys were bitten with the snow mania, and longing to be out-of-doors, in all the exhilarating brilliancy of sunshine, frost, and snow. Noon came at last, books were packed away; the boys rushed off like mad things, while Katherine went more soberly across the store and entered the living-room, which was sitting-room and kitchen combined.

An older girl was there, looking too young to be called a woman, but who nevertheless was a widow, and the mother of the twin girls who were rolling on the floor and playing with a big, shaggy wolfhound. She was Nellie, Mrs. Burton, whose husband had been drowned while sealing when the twins were twelve months old. Mrs. Burton had come home to live then, and keep house for her father, so that Katherine might go to Montreal to finish her education.

"Did you see Father as you came through the store?" Mrs. Burton asked, as she rapidly spread the dinner on the table in the centre of the room, while Katherine joined in the frolic that was going on with the twins