CHAPTER VII. WESTWARD HO! "Partings such as press The life from out young hearts." CHILDE HAROLD. JOHN MEDLICOTT was almost entirely a selfmade man. I do not mean to say that he walked into his town with only a sixpence in his pocket, and that as a beginning he swept out a shop. Stories of this kind, often apocryphal, are told of most men, who, from indigence come to be millionaires. In the present case any legend of that kind would be wholly untrue, for young Medlicott had been started in business-such as it was-by his father. The old gentleman had himself kept a hardware store in the days of his youth, but he had sunk the shop when he moved down to Montreal. Young John-the man of this story-had been left up country in charge of the business, and when already a rising man he was never ashamed to sell you an iron gun or a pennyworth of nails across the counter. In a new colony hardware is, I expect, the most lucrative of all trades. It beats "dry goods" even out of the field. The latter marks another and a second stage in the prosperity of the country-when "spring" and "fall" consignments are eagerly demanded, purchased, and displayed, as a visible exponent of the wealth that lies in granary clearing or strong box. John Medlicott's trade in hardware had given many years start in the race for wealth, and he was quite a prosperous man when those who followed other trades in his native town were still struggling at the retail business. He had capital to invest, too, when railways came to be spoken of through the province. It was the experience, I suppose, that he had gained in his early calling which prompted him about this time to turn his attention to the manufacture of iron rails, and he had been shrewd enough to associate with himself an exiled Hungarian engineer, who brought into the business the experience that the other lacked. The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada and John Medlicott's fortune became accom. plished facts about the same time. Riches and a green old age overtook John Medlicott together. He was still a hale, hearty man, however, and fond of a country life. So he bought himself an estate in the neighbourhood of Ramoka, his native place, and retired thither, meaning to build a snug house on his own property, and spend the autumn of his days in peace and quiet, devoted to the pursuits he loved. Before he had been thus engaged for many years, "oil" was "sprung" in one corner of his land, and he was compelled to resume business habits in order to take care of his own. A fortune, moderate at first, rapidly grew to colossal proportions, and at the time that Kate Braybrooke was preparing to accept his invitation to make his house her home, he was reckoned one of the wealthiest men in the province. Medlicott was intensely royal and Conservative. As a young man he had been "out" in Papineau's rebellion, and had been engaged in the action fought by Sir Francis Head near Toronto, in 1837. To the last he held a commission in a Canadian militia regiment, and liked very much to be addressed as Colonel Medlicott. An athletic, broad chested man, standing six feet four in his stockings, he must always have been a dangerous adversary in a tussel. In the troublous times he had proved this more than once; but his early pugnacity had left him a curious legacy for the rest of his life. He had found himself one day at a way-side shanty, when a party of loafers were decrying the British rule, and speaking in disrespectful terms of their liege lady, our Sovereign Queen Victoria, who had just then ascended the throne. Medlicott took up the cudgels, and abused the traitors roundly. A general melée ensued; but John Medlicott, in the act of throwing off his upper garments to fight for his own opinions, caught his hand in the armholes of his waistcoat, and taken thus, entangled and at a disadvantage, he was severely handled by the others. From that day forth he eschewed waistcoats; nothing would induce him to wear one. When, as time passed on, he came to be a man of mark in the pro |