Wrecked but not Ruined | Page 8

settling down goes. My only
fear is that it won't be easy to find a place that will at once suit my

fancy and my purse. The small sum of money left me by my father at
his death two years ago will not purchase a very extensive place, but--"
"I know the very thing to suit you," interrupted the surveyor with
emphasis, "a splendid little cottage--quite a mansion in miniature--with
garden, fences, fields, outhouses, etcetera, all complete and going
literally for an old song. Come, we'll `go visit it by the pale moonlight'
just now, return to have tea with the ladies, and to-morrow we'll go see
it by daylight. It is close at hand, the name is Loch Dhu, and it has only
one objection."
"What may that be?" asked Redding, much amused at the abrupt little
man's energy.
"Won't tell you till you've seen it; come."
Without more ado they sallied forth and walked along the snowy track
that led to the cottage in question. A few minutes sufficed to bring them
to it, and the first glance showed the fur-trader that his friend had not
exaggerated the beauty of the place. The cottage, although small, was
so elegant in form and so tastefully planned in every respect that it well
deserved the title of a mansion in miniature. It stood on a rising ground
which was crowned with trees; and the garden in front, the
summer-house, the porch, the trellis-work fence, the creepers, the
flower-beds--everything in fact, told that it had been laid out and
planned by a refined mind.
Of course Redding had to call in the aid of his imagination a little, for
at the moment when he first beheld it, the whole scene was robed in a
mantle of snow. Close to the house, and in sight of the front windows,
was a small lake or pond, by the side of which rose an abrupt precipice
of about fifty feet in height. Beyond this, a little to the right, lay the
undulating fields of the settlement, dotted with clumps of trees and
clusters of cottages.
"Most beautiful!" exclaimed the fur-trader, "but why named Loch Dhu,
which, if I mistake not, is the Gaelic for Black Lake?"

"Because that little pond," answered the surveyor, "when freed from its
wintry coat, looks dark and deep even at mid-day, under the shadow of
that beetling cliff."
"Truly, I like it well," said Redding, as he turned again to look at the
cottage, "are you its architect?"
"I am," answered Mr Gambart, "but a greater mind than mine guided
my pencil in the process of its creation."
"Indeed! and what is the objection to it that you spoke of?"
"That," replied the surveyor, with a mysterious look, "I must, on second
thoughts, decline to tell you."
"How, then, can you expect me to buy the place?" demanded Redding,
in surprise.
"Why, because I, a disinterested friend, strongly recommend you to do
so. You believe in me. Well, I tell you that there is no objection to the
place but one, and that one won't prove to be an objection in the long
run, though it is one just now. The price is, as you know, ridiculously
small, first, because the family who owned it have been compelled by
reverses of fortune to part with it, and are in urgent need of ready cash;
and, secondly, because few people have yet found out the beauties of
this paradise, which will one day become a very important district of
Canada."
"Humph, well, I believe in your friendship, and to some extent in your
wisdom, though I doubt your capacity to prophesy," said Redding.
"However, if you won't tell me the objection, I must rest content.
To-morrow we will look at it in daylight, and if I then see no objections
to it myself, I'll buy it."
The morrow came. In the blaze of the orb of day Loch Dhu looked
more beautiful than it did by moonlight. After a thorough examination
of house and grounds, the fur-trader resolved to purchase it, and
commissioned his plump little friend to carry out the transaction.

Thereafter he and his man retraced their steps to the wilderness, still
breathing unutterable things against the entire clan of McLeod.
CHAPTER FOUR.
PIONEERING.
We turn now to "the enemy"--the McLeods. The father and his two
sons sat in a rude shanty, on a bench and an empty keg, drinking tea out
of tin cans. They were all stalwart, dark-haired, grave-visaged
mountaineers of Scotland. Unitedly they would have measured at least
eighteen feet of humanity. The only difference between the father and
the sons was that a few silver hairs mingled with the black on the head
of the former, and a rougher skin covered his countenance. In other
respects