Tite turned the knife over in his hand and gazed reflectively at it. "Boss, it is a present from my cousin on the Reserve".
"Your relations are very kind to you".
"Yes. My cousin is descended from a great Chief. He is all Indian but I am part French".
"I know. Tite, do you feel yourself different from the pure Indians?"
"Boss, if pure means good, I am as pure as they are". He sat back on his heels and looked up at Wilmott. "But that Mees Daisy says I have an Indian mouth and French eyes. Do you think I have?"
Wilmott exclaimed, in sudden anger, "If you mention Miss Daisy’s name once more to me, Tite, I will throw you out, neck and crop!"
"Very well, Boss. But I have something I want to show you". He took off his hat and out of its crown brought a paper packet. He opened it and showed it to be made up of clean bank-notes.
"The reward!" ejaculated Wilmott. "Is it all there?"
"Yes, Boss. But we had better take it into the house and count it". He held the bank-notes to his nose and sniffed them. "I like the smell of money, Boss, but it smells better when it has been about more".
"Mr. Vaughan should not have handed over such a sum to a boy like you. He should have given it to some responsible person to keep for you. But, of course, I shall do that".
"Mr. Vaughan said he would keep it for me but I said I wanted it all-right away. He seemed to want to get rid of me".
"Well, wash your hands and we’ll go in and count the notes".
Tite obediently laid the fish in a basket and washed his hands at the river’s edge. In the house Wilmott sat down by the table in the kitchen and counted the money.
"One hundred pounds", he declared. "It is a lot of money for you to have earned so easily, Tite".
"Boss, it was not so easy. I searched the bush for a long while before I found her. You see, I do not say her name, Boss, as you told me not to. I wonder if my grandmother will still think she is a harlot when she hears of the good fortune she has brought me".
"We shall not discuss that".
Wilmott looked reflectively at Tite. What a change had taken place in the boy during this year of their close association. He could write a good clear hand. He could read any book Wilmott gave him and reading absorbed him completely. Every day his vocabulary was enlarged. He was studying history, geography, mathematics and Latin. He was worthy of a good education, Wilmott thought. He said:
"Your future is now assured, Tite. This reward, added to what I can do for you, will put you through college. You may be able to enter a profession if you work hard. What do you think you would like to be? Have you thought of it?"
Tite drew up a chair and faced Wilmott across the table.
"I want to be just what you are, Boss", he said.
Wilmott gave a bark of laughter. "That’s no ambition at all", he said.
"It is enough for me, Boss", Tite returned. "Just to live here alone with you and fish in the river and grow a few things on the land and read books in the evenings, is all I want".
Wilmott was touched. "It suits me, too", he said, "better than any other life I can imagine. You’ve been a good boy, Tite, and I’m very fond of you".
"And I am very fond of you, also, Boss. Like mine, your eyelashes are long and your neck like a bronze column. But I cannot say that your mouth-"
"What did I tell you, Tite?" said Wilmott. "If you think you will please me by applying to me the foolish things that girl said of you, you are much mistaken".
"Of course I am, Boss. I am sure she is a harlot".
"Now", said Wilmott, ignoring the last remark, "I am going to deposit this money in the bank for you, to be drawn on as needed. Do you agree?"
"Oh, yes, Boss. But could we keep back a pound or two to buy us a few treats, such as candied fruit and bull’s-eyes?"
"I shall buy those for you", said Wilmott.
"But I should like to buy them with my own money, Boss. You see, the wages you pay me are not very high and I give something to my grandmother. Now that I come to think of it, I give all my wages to my family".
"Balderdash!" said Wilmott, but he flung him a pound note. "Take it", he said testily, "and do what you like with it".
"Mille remercîements", said Tite, smiling. "You see I can speak a little French, on occasion, Boss".
XXII. The Church
A week later, Daisy Vaughan left her uncle’s house and returned to Montreal. It was understood that the nervous and physical strain she had been under had made a complete change necessary. The Whiteoaks did not see her before her departure but those who did declared that she looked not in the least ill or dejected. Indeed, Kate Brent said that Daisy had never looked better or been more talkative. It had been as good as a play to hear her description of the days she had been lost in the forest. She had had encounters with wild animals which had been seen by no other in that vicinity for a generation. But she seemed willing to return to Montreal. She could no longer endure, she said, to remain in such a backwater.
Colonel Vaughan accompanied his niece on the journey. Her visit had been an expensive one for him. Besides providing for her for a year, which included the buying of some quite expensive clothes, there had been considerable cost connected with the search parties, to say nothing of the large reward paid to Tite. Now there was the expense of the journey.
After Daisy’s return to Montreal she corresponded regularly with Lydia Busby for some time. She wrote of the gaiety of that town, the soirées, the balls. She filled Lydia with a mad desire to do something of the sort. At last came the news of Daisy’s engagement to a South American artist who had been painting in the Laurentians; and finally invitations to her wedding. She and her husband were to leave at once for Paris where they would for some years make their home.
But though these letters caused much disturbance in the breasts of the young Busbys, so that their father was put to it to keep them in order, they made little impression at Jalna. There, with the harvest to be garnered, the winter quarters for the growing number of livestock to be got ready, the house to be prepared for an impending visit from Adeline’s parents, the building of the church to be sufficiently completed for consecration and the christening of Ernest, little interest was left over for the doings of the outer world. Adeline and Philip consigned Daisy to the accumulated incidents of their varied past.
In truth, Philip could have very well done without this visit from his parents-in-law. He was somewhat tired of the three Courts who were still at Jalna. However, it had been arranged that they were to return to Ireland with the older members of the family. Otherwise Philip feared they might have remained throughout the winter, for they had already expressed a desire to indulge in skating and snow-shoeing.
Philip’s face, in those days, expressed a serenity that might well have aroused the envy of men of a later day. He was up almost at dawn. At night he was no more than healthily tired and was still so full of interest in all he had to do that he could scarcely bear to go to his bed. When he saw his heavy wagons, drawn by his ponderous farm horses, roll into the barn with their weight of barley, wheat or oats, his heart swelled with pride. It was not that he had much land under cultivation as yet but that what was cultivated had borne so well. Then there were his cattle, his pigs and his sheep, all flourishing and with good shelter and plenty of fodder for the coming winter. Above all, there was Adeline, the picture of glowing health and so happy in the new life! There were his children growing each day in strength and intelligence. Gussie already knew her letters, was learning to sew and could say by heart and without a mistake several poems suitable to her age. Nicholas, not yet two, might have passed for three, so upright, so full-chested, so stirring was he. His mop of curls now touched his shoulders and the combing-out of their tangles caused him to fill the house with his cries of rage and pain. Ernest was an angel with his downy fair head, his forget-me-not blue eyes and his smile that was even sweeter because it was toothless.