For some seventy feet it rose a beautiful tapering
brown pillar without a single branch, but at that height splendid
dark green boughs, which, looked at from below, had the appearance
of gigantic fern-leaves, sprang out horizontally from the trunk,
projecting right over the house and flower-garden, to both of
which they furnished a grateful proportion of shade, without
-- being so high up -- offering any impediment to the passage
of light and air.
'What a beautiful tree!' exclaimed Sir Henry.
'Yes, you are right; it is a beautiful tree. There is not another
like it in all the country round, that I know of,' answered Mr
Mackenzie. 'I call it my watch tower. As you see, I have a
rope ladder fixed to the lowest bough; and if I want to see anything
that is going on within fifteen miles or so, all I have to do
is to run up it with a spyglass. But you must be hungry, and
I am sure the dinner is cooked. Come in, my friends; it is but
a rough place, but well enough for these savage parts; and I
can tell you what, we have got -- a French cook.' And he led
the way on to the veranda.
As I was following him, and wondering what on earth he could
mean by this, there suddenly appeared, through the door that
opened on to the veranda from the house, a dapper little man,
dressed in a neat blue cotton suit, with shoes made of tanned
hide, and remarkable for a bustling air and most enormous black
mustachios, shaped into an upward curve, and coming to a point
for all the world like a pair of buffalo-horns.
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