The Trial [169]
of the change, and of increasing confidence and comfort in her friend Cora Muller. Cora's Confirmation had brought the girls into contact with the New York clergy, and had procured them an introduction to the clergyman of Winiamac, the nearest church, so that there was much less sense of loneliness, moreover, the fuller and more systematic doctrine, and the development of the beauty and daily guidance of the Church, had softened the bright American girl, so as to render her infinitely dearer to her English friend, and they were as much united as they could be, where the great leading event of the life of one remained a mystery to the other. Yet perhaps it helped to begin a fresh life, that the intimate companion of that new course should be entirely disconnected with the past. Averil threw herself into the present with as resolute a will as she could muster. With much spirit she described the arrival at the Winiamac station, and the unconcealed contempt with which the mass of luggage was regarded by the Western world, who 'reckoned it would be fittest to make kindlings with.' Heavy country wagons were to bring the furniture; the party themselves were provided for by a light wagon and a large cart, driven by Cora's brother, Mordaunt, and by the farming-man, Philetus, a gentleman who took every occasion of asserting his equality, if not his superiority to the new-comers;, demanded all the Christian names, and used them without prefix; and when Henry impressively mentioned his eldest sister as Miss Warden, stared and said, 'Why, Doctor, I thought she was not your old woman!'--the Western epithet of a wife. But as Cora was quite content to leave Miss behind her in civilized society, and as they were assured that to stand upon ceremony would leave them without domestic assistance, the sisters had implored Henry to waive all preference for a polite address. The loveliness of the way was enchanting--the roads running straight as an arrow through glorious forest lands of pine, beech, maple, and oak, in the full glory of spring, and the perspective before and behind making a long narrowing green bower of meeting branches; the whole of the borders of the road covered with lovely flowers--May- wings, a butterfly-like milkwort, pitcher-plant, convolvulus; new insects danced in the shade--golden orioles, blue birds, the great American robin, the field officer, with his orange epaulettes, glanced before them. Cora was in ecstasy at the return to forest scenery, the Wards at its novelty, and the escape from town. Too happy were they at first to care for the shaking and bumping of the road, and the first mud-hole into which they plunged was almost a joke, under Mordaunt Muller's assurances that it was easy fording, though the splashes flew far and wide. Then there was what Philetus called 'a mash with a real handsome bridge over it,' i. e. a succession of tree trunks laid side by side for about a quarter of a mile. Here the female passengers insisted on walking--even Cora, though her brother and Philetus both laughed her to scorn; and more especially for her foot-gear, delicate kid boots, without which no city damsel stirred. Averil and her sisters, in the English boots scorned at New York, had their share in the laugh, while picking their way from log to log, hand in hand, and exciting Philetus's further disdain by their rapture with the glorious flowers of the bog. But where was Massissauga? Several settlements had been passed, the houses looking clean and white in forest openings, with fields where the lovely spring green of young maize charmed the eye. At last the road grew desolate. There were a few patches of corn, a few squalid-looking log or frame houses, a tract of horrible dreary blackness; and still more horrible, beyond it was a region of spectres--trees white and stripped bare, lifting their dead arms like things blasted. Averil cried out in indignant horror, 'Who has done this?' 'We have,' answered Mordaunt. 'This is Maclellan Square, Miss Warden, and there's River Street,' pointing down an avenue of skeletons.