Between Viking and Sunburst there was a great jealousy
and rivalry; for the salmon-fishers thought that the mills, though on a
tributary stream, interfered, by the sawdust spilled in the river, with
the travel and spawning of the salmon. It needed all the tact of both Mr.
Devlin and Roscoe to keep the places from open fighting. As it was, the
fire smouldered. When Sunday came, however, there seemed to be truce
between the villages. It appeared to me that one touched the primitive
and idyllic side of life: lively, sturdy, and simple, with nature about
us at once benignant and austere. It is impossible to tell how fresh,
bracing, and inspiring was the climate of this new land. It seemed to
glorify humanity, to make all who breathed it stalwart, and almost
pardonable even in wrong-doing. Roscoe was always received respectfully,
and even cordially, among the salmon-fishers of Sunburst, as among the
mill-men and river-drivers of Viking: not the less so, because he had an
excellent faculty for machinery, and could talk to the people in their
own colloquialisms. He had, besides, though there was little exuberance
in his nature, a gift of dry humour, which did more than anything else,
perhaps, to make his presence among them unrestrained.
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