silent, just as poor. The clearing is small, the house is small, a
small terrier suns himself on a pile of wood, and the only large
object apparently in existence is the tall, broad-shouldered,
well-proportioned man who presently emerges from the wooden house.
His ear has just caught the sound of a bell. It is not a bad bell
for Muskoka, and it has a most curious effect on this white, cold
silent world of snow and blue shadows. The owner of the house, who
is also the builder of it, stands a few moments listening. There is
only the twitter of the snowbirds to listen to, then the bell; more
snowbirds, and then the bell again.
"It has quite a churchy sound," he remarks; "I never noticed how
churchy before, but it reminds me of some other bell. Ten years I
have read for them here, and I never noticed it before." More
twitter from the snowbirds and the bell again. Time for church,
although the functions of the lay-reader will be this day laid aside,
giving place to the more exacting ones of the _rector chori_. This
being Christmas day in the morning, it devolves upon one clergyman
to preach in four different places, if not literally at once, at
least on the same day.
"It isn't possible," thinks the tall man swinging along at a
tremendous pace, "that this bell--there it is again, confound it;
yet no, not confound it--can resemble that other bell I used to know.
No, quite impossible. Is it likely that anything here," and the
thinker spreads both long arms out to take in the entire landscape,
"can resemble or remotely suggest the Old Country, or, as people
call it, home? Home? Why this is home. That four-roomed and
convenient, if not commodious, mansion I have just quitted is my home.
Talking of commodiousness, it's quite large enough, too. I have no
wife, no children, no partner, not even a sleeping one, no one ever
comes to see me. So I do not need a drawing-room, a nursery, a guest
chamber, or a smoking-room. I have no books, therefore I need no
library; I indulge in no chemical pursuits, therefore I need no
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