The Disappearance II - The Neighbourhood

About a quarter of a mile to the north of Savareen's abode was a charming little hostelry, kept by a French Canadian named Jean Baptiste Lapierre. It was one of the snuggest and cosiest of imaginable inns; by no means the sort of wayside tavern commonly to be met with in Western Canada in those times, or even in times much more recent. The landlord had kept a high-class restaurant in Quebec in the old days before the union of the Provinces, and piqued himself upon knowing what was what. He was an excellent cook, and knew how to cater to the appetites of more exacting epicures than he was likely to number among his ordinary patrons in a rural community like that in which he had pitched his quarters. When occasion required, he could serve up a dinner or supper at which Brillat Savarian himself would have had no excuse for turning up his nose. It was seldom that any such exigeant demand as this was made upon his skill, but even his ordinary fare was good enough for any city sir or madam whom chance might send beneath his roof, and such persons never failed to carry away with them pleasant remembrances of the place.

The creaking sign which swayed in the breeze before the hospitable door proclaimed it to be The Royal Oak, but it was commonly known throughout the whole of that country-side as Lapierre's. The excellence of its larder was proverbial, insomuch that professional men and others used frequently to drive out from town expressly to dine or sup there. Once a week or so—usually on Saturday nights—a few of the choice spirits thereabouts used to meet in the cosy parlour and hold a decorous sort of free-and-easy, winding up with supper at eleven o'clock. On these occasions, as a matter of course, the liquor flowed with considerable freedom, and the guests had a convivial time of it; but there was nothing in the shape of wild revelry—nothing to bring reproach upon the good name of the house. Jean Baptiste had too much regard for his well-earned reputation to permit these meetings to degenerate into mere orgies. He showed due respect for the sanctity of the Sabbath, and took care to make the house clear of company before the stroke of midnight. By such means he not only kept his guests from indulging in riotous excesses, but secured their respect for himself and his establishment.

Savareen was a pretty regular attendant at these convivial gatherings, and was indeed a not infrequent visitor at other times. He always met with a warm welcome, for he could sing a good song, and paid his score with commendable regularity. His Saturday nights' potations did not interfere with his timely appearance on Sunday morning in his pew in the little church which stood on the hill a short distance above Lapierre's. His wife usually sat by his side, and accompanied him to and fro. Everything seemed to indicate that the couple lived happily together, and that they were mutually blessed in their domestic relations. With regard to Mrs. Savareen, the only thing necessary to be mentioned about her at present is that she was the daughter of a carpenter and builder resident in Millbrook.

There was a good deal of travel on the Millbrook and Spotswood road, more especially in the autumn, when the Dutch farmers from the settlements up north used to come down in formidable array, for the purpose of supplying themselves with fruit to make cider and "applesass" for the winter. The great apple-producing district of the Province begins in the townships lying a few miles to the south of Westchester, and the road between Millbrook and Spotswood was, and is, the most direct route thither from the Dutch settlements. The garb and other appointments of the stalwart Canadian Teuton of those days were such as to make him easily distinguishable from his Celtic or Saxon neighbour. He usually wore a long, heavy, coat of coarse cloth, reaching down to his heels. His head was surmounted by a felt hat with a brim wide enough to have served, at a pinch, for the tent of a side-show. His wagon was a great lumbering affair, constructed, like himself, after an ante-diluvian pattern, and pretty nearly capacious enough for a first-rate man-of-war. In late September and early October it was no unprecedented thing to see as many as thirty or forty of these ponderous vehicles moving southward, one at the tail of the other, in a continuous string. They came down empty, and returned a day or two afterwards laden with the products of the southern orchards. On the return journey the wagons were full to overflowing. Not so the drivers, who were an exceedingly temperate and abstemious people, too parsimonious to leave much of their specie at the Royal Oak. It was doubtless for this reason that mine host Lapierre regarded, and was accustomed to speak of them with a good deal of easy contempt, not to say aversion. They brought little or no grist to his mill, and he was fond of proclaiming that he did not keep a hotel for the accommodation of such canaille. The emphasis placed by him on this last word was something quite refreshing to hear.

The road all the way from Millbrook to Spotswood, corresponds to the mathematical definition of a straight line. It forms the third concession of the township, and there is not a curve in it anywhere. The concessions number from west to east, and the sidelines, running at right angles to them are exactly two miles apart. At the northwestern angle formed by the intersection of the gravel road with the first side line north of Millbrook stood a little toll-gate, kept, at the period of the story, by one Jonathan Perry. Between the toll-gate and Savareen's on the same side of the road were several other houses to which no more particular reference is necessary. On the opposite side of the highway, somewhat more than a hundred yards north of the toll-gate, was the abode of a farmer named Mark Stolliver. Half a mile further up was John Calder's house, which was the only one until you came to Squire Harrington's. To the rear of the Squire's farm was a huge morass about fifty acres in extent, where cranberries grew in great abundance, from which circumstance it was known as Cranberry Swamp.