Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road

Excerpt

CHAPTER I.

During the régime of Governor Monk, of Upper Canada, the military road was cut through the virgin pine from Lake Ontario to the waters leading into Georgian Bay. The clearings followed, then the homesteads, then the corners, where the country store and the smithy flourished in primitive dignity. The roadside hostelry soon had a place on the highway, and deep into its centre was Nancy McVeigh's.

Nancy McVeigh's tavern was famed near and far. In earliest days the name was painted in letters bold across the high gabled face, but years of weather had washed the paint off. Its owner, however, had so long and faithfully dominated its destiny that it was known only as her property, and so it was named. A hill sloped gently for half a mile, traversed by a roadway of dry, grey sand, flanked on either side by a split-rail snake fence, gradually widening into an open space in front of the tavern. The tavern had reached an advanced stage of dilapidation. A rickety verandah in front shaded the first story, and a gable projected from above, so that the sill almost touched the ridge-board. A row of open sheds, facing inwards, ranged along one side of the yard, terminated by a barn, which originally had been a low log structure, but, with the increase of trade, had been capped with a board loft. Midway between the sheds and the house stood the pump, and whilst the owners gossiped over the brimming ale mugs within the house, the tired beasts dropped their muzzles into the trough. Some of the passers-by were of temperate habits, and did not enter the door leading to the bar, but accepted the refreshment offered by Nancy's pump, and thought none the less of the woman because their principles were out of sympathy with her business. The place lived only because of its mistress, and an odd character was she. Fate had directed her life into a peculiar channel, and she followed its course with a sureness of purpose that brought her admiration. She was tall, raw-boned, and muscled like a man. Her face was deeply lined, patient, and crowned with a mass of fine, fair hair turning into silvery grey, and blending so evenly that a casual observer could scarcely discern the change of color. It was her eyes, however, that betrayed the soul within, their harshness mocking the goodness which was known of her, and their softness at times giving the lie to the roughness which, in a life such as hers, might be expected.

Nancy McVeigh, the tavern and the dusty Monk Road were synonymous, and to know one was to know all three.

Nancy was within the bar when two wayfarers, whose teams were drinking at the trough, entered.

"It's a foine day, Mistress McVeigh," greeted old Mr. Conors, at the sight of her.

"It is that, and more, too, Mr. Conors," she assented, including the two men before her in her remark.

"This spell o' weather's bad fer the crops. I'll have to stop at the pump altogether if it don't rain soon."

"You're welcome to your choice. If ye want a drink and can pay fer it, I am pleased to serve ye, but I ask no man fer what he cannot afford," was Nancy's rejoinder, as she wiped her hands on her apron after drawing the mugs....