"I care a great deal. I am a stranger here. You have helped to make me happy".
"You are lucky to be able to settle down so quickly. I don’t belong anywhere".
Adeline opened her brown eyes wide at him. "Why, Bobbie, what a way to talk! When you’ve had more experience of life you’ll not worry about belonging places".
He answered gloomily, "That’s the trouble. I have no experience. You are only interested in men who have had experience. Your stiff-necked friend, Wilmott, for example".
"What do you know about him?" she asked sharply.
"Oh, nothing-except that he looks unutterable things… I can’t tolerate him".
They had, somewhat breathless from talking while they climbed, reached the top of the steep. The walls of the house rose before them, roofless, with gaping windows and scantling floors. Great stacks of brick and mounds of gravel flanked it. Piles of sweet-scented lumber lay ready. But the workmen, their lunch eaten, were having their noon-hour relaxation. They lay on the ground or sprawling on the lumber, with the exception of two French-Canadians. These were lumbermen who had been attracted by the high wages Philip offered. As though they had not had exercise enough in their work they now were dancing with great vivacity and energy. They leaped, stamped, twirled, with intricate steps, snapping their fingers, their teeth flashing. One was middle-aged, with a red handkerchief tied about a thin corded neck, the other young, handsome, but no more agile, indeed not so much so. The music for the dance was supplied by an old man seated on the great stump of a pine tree. He was Fiddling Jock. He had expected to be turned out but the Whiteoaks had been taken by his oddity and allowed him to stay on. Philip had given him shingles to mend his leaky roof and new glass to fill the broken windows. No one knew when the cottage had been built, probably by some settler who long ago had died or found the place too lonely. Adeline had christened it Fiddler’s Hut. Now she called out:
"Splendid, Jock! Ah, but that’s a fine tune! Play up! Make ’em dance!"
The old fellow nodded violently. With a flourish of his bow he increased the tempo of the music till the feet of the two dancers seemed possessed of a mad spirit. Robert Vaughan was, as usual, amused and a little embarrassed by her familiarity with the men. He would not have had her different but he resented the fact that her unconventionality gave rise to criticism in the neighbourhood. "Damn their strait-lacedness!" he thought. "She is perfect". But still she made him feel embarrassed.
The Frenchmen sat down breathless. The old Scot reached for a tin mug of tea and took a swig of it. The mug was held to no visible mouth, for the lower part of his face was hidden by an enormous growth of grizzled beard. He wore a grey jacket and a kilt of Scotch tartan so faded that to which clan it belonged was no longer discernible. His bare knees were thin and hairy. He looked as durable and tough as a tree growing on a stony hillside but there was an appealing, lonely look in his wide-open blue eyes.
Adeline clapped her hands. She exclaimed:
"You should give them an Irish tune, Jock. If you played an Irish jig for them on Irish pipes they’d not be hopping about in that feeble fashion".
"There’s nae chunes sae fu’ o’ sperrit as the Scottish chunes", he answered stoutly. "And as for dancin’, I’ll warrant no Irishman livin’ could beat yon Frenchies".
"Ah, you should see them dance in Galway", she said. "And their whistling as clear as a pipe".
"We have two Irishmen here", said Jock, "and they have no more dance in them than clods".
"They’re from Belfast. That’s the reason". She turned to the French-Canadians, — "Bon! Vous êtes très agiles. Je vous admire beaucoup".
"Merci, Madame", they said in one voice.
"Wad ye be givin’ a pairty when ye move into your fine hoose?" asked Jock.
"Indeed we shall".
"I’d like fine tae play ma fiddle for it. D’ye think I micht? I’ll learn an Irish jig for the occasion if ye’ll allow me".
"I engage you on the spot".
"It will cost ye naething, mind. I’d like to mak’ a return for a’ ye’ve done for me".
As they went toward the walls of the house Robert exclaimed, "You can’t have that fellow play at your party! It would be the talk of the countryside!"
"But he plays at all the weddings and christenings, doesn’t he?"
"Not of your sort".
"I’m just an immigrant", she declared. "I want to be like the other immigrants".
"Captain Whiteoak will never agree".
"We shall see".
They mounted the temporary steps and went in at the doorless door.
But Robert continued to look gloomy. He said, "Women exert too much influence on us men".
A dimple darted into Adeline’s cheek and away again.
"If she’s the right sort of woman it’s good for you, isn’t it?"
"The right sort of woman could do anything with me".
"Then we must be on the watch for her. But don’t you ever let her do things to you till I have inspected her… Come along, Bobbie, let’s see the house!" She took his hand and led him in. "Isn’t it enchanting?"
They had inspected it the day before but the beams put into place since then, the rows of bricks added, the mortar just setting into hardness were of enthralling interest. The walls had no more to support than the ethereal arch of the sky. But they stood solid, waiting, as though in a kind of benevolent eagerness to shoulder their expected burden.
"Isn’t it enchanting?" she repeated. "Oh, the things that will happen here! It’s enough to frighten one, isn’t it, Bobbie, to think of the things that are crowding in on us?"
She bent her brows to a dark line. "Wouldn’t it have been strange if, when the architect brought us the sketches for the house, he could have brought a sketch of all that lay before us here?"
"Perhaps you will not spend all the rest of your days here. You may want to move. Perhaps you will want to go to another part of the country or even back to the Old Land. There are many who do".
"Never! Not Philip and me! We’ve come here to stay. Canada will have our bones. Jalna will be our home". Her eyes filled with tears. "Do you know, Bobbie, that is the first time I have called the place Jalna, naturally and easily. Now the name belongs to it, just as Philip and I do".
Young Vaughan was watching a figure bent double behind a newly rising partition. He pressed her arm and whispered:
"There’s a half-breed fellow in there. I think he’s stealing something. Let’s watch him".
They crept forward in time to see the youth filling his pockets with nails and screws from a box of carpenters’ supplies. As he saw himself observed he straightened his body and looked at them coolly. He was very thin, very dark, with chiselled features of surprising beauty. They were of the aquiline Indian type, though less pronounced, but he had a warm colour in his cheeks, and his hair, instead of being coarse and straight, was fine and hung in wavy locks about his thin cheeks. His clothes were ragged. He was about Robert’s age.
"Well, now", said Adeline, "that’s a fine trick you’re at!"
"I work for Mr. Wilmott", he answered gently. "I’m building a poultry-house for him and I ran short of nails. I thought maybe the carpenters wouldn’t mind me taking a few".
"It’s a good thing for you they didn’t catch you at it", said Robert.
"They were for Mr. Wilmott", he returned, keeping his eyes on Adeline’s face.
She went forward eagerly. "Take all you want!" she exclaimed. "There are all sizes and shapes here. Come, let’s see what you have".
Hesitatingly he drew some specimens from his pockets.
"’Tis not half enough! Come, here is a bit of sacking. Fill it up. Would you like some of these nice hinges and hooks? And here’s a funny-looking thing but it might be useful".